The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (63 page)

Teigas smiled. “Yes, that’s all.”

“If humans are stronger now, what about Amy?”

“She’s a stronger witch now than she was a month ago.”

“She’s felt stronger in our dreams.”

Teigas frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t meet up like that.”

Pueblo shrugged. “Can’t help it, and I wouldn’t change it. If I could just see her … for just a day—”

“You know you can’t.”

He sighed and sank backwards into the sand until he was lying flat, just as he had been with Amy the last time they’d dreamt. “I know.”

The Dessec tribe were after her and their baby, but they had no idea where she was right now, largely owing to Paul’s magical shield surrounding them. But Pueblo was connected to the Dessec by blood. By visiting her in person, he would be a beacon signalling her location and everything they were trying to achieve in keeping her and the baby safe would be for nothing. Besides, he had his own plan: destroy the Dessec. He’d die before he’d let them take his child, and since dying was out of the question for the sake of its successful birth into the world – and Amy’s safety – he’d have to stay the hell away from both her and anything dangerous. So he was stuck here with the fairy trying to learn everything he could about magic and shamanism.

But they had time on their side – oh, did they ever. You didn’t learn to be a shaman in three weeks. So, Pueblo had bent time, or at least, the time that immediately surrounded their space out here in the desert.

In their own little cocoon, he had stretched every second until fifty years had passed. Tomorrow would signal the end of his fifth decade in training.

The rest of the world, outside their cocoon, continued on as normal.

He hadn’t told Amy. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her, and he could full well imagine how she’d take the news of him having lived five whole decades without her. Would she think his love for her will have diminished? It hadn’t. For him, absence made the heart grow fonder, but more than that, bending time was his gift. He could move in and out of it at will, so fifty years was nothing in the greater scheme of things, and he had often hopped through the greater scheme of something or another at various periods of time. Fifty years, three weeks – it made no difference. He had once made a silent promise that he would give her what she needed until the end of time – it hadn’t been some empty oath.

But he did miss her terribly. At least they had their dream meetings which the Dessec couldn’t access – those were solely down to their own blood bond, and the fact that, unlike others of his kind, he could time travel.

“They’re not just dreams,” scolded Teigas, continuing where he’d left off. “With the dimensions merged, they’re another form of reality. Someone could easily trace the meetings that you have if they knew how.”

“I’ll take my chances on that front,” he growled. “I can’t not see her at all.”

Teigas mumbled his disapproval, and then studied him closely. “What else is bugging you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You have a very emotive face.”

He raised his eyebrows, then quickly put them down again, wondering if that was what he meant.
Great. Read me like a book. Might as well spill, then…
“She loves him.”

“Aaahh … she said that?”

“She doesn’t have to. We’re blood-bonded. She may not realise the full implications of that, but I can feel her love for him. Besides … they’re
soul-
bonded.”

“So what if she loves him?”

He stared at the small, man-fairy-thing that had become his personal Yoda. “Is that a serious question?”

“Yes. He’s the baby’s father as much as you are. Do you think she
shouldn’t
love him? The poor woman has two lives – has
had
her life literally split in two. Does her loving him mean she loves you less?”

“No, but I kinda wasn’t planning on sharing,” he glowered.

Teigas smiled. “Lots of things have happened that you weren’t planning on. You gotta go with it, change, adapt—”

“And let him have her?” he bit out. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that
you’ve
had her for fifty years longer than she’s had you. What is truly yours never leaves you if you let it go.”

Amy’s words floated towards him on the hot desert breeze, as if she was right there next to him:
I’m yours.
 

Maybe it was that perceived reality shit again, but fuck did it make his heart ache.

“Be honest with yourself,” continued Teigas, “are you more pissed off that she loves another, or that she might
leave
you to be with him?”

He all at once felt stranded at the thought of her leaving him. God, he’d already thought he’d lost her twice: once in Hyde Park after the Shanka portal was closed, and again when he’d wondered, for a split second, if she would choose to
not
follow him back through the wormhole.

The morning after he’d rescued her from 1956, he’d lain with her on her couch and vowed that he would love her, even if she could never love him. Because the thought of losing her drowned him.

“Exactly,” stated Teigas.

Pueblo scowled.

The imp ignored him. “If losing her is the trigger, then everything else is irrelevant, and you can’t lose her if she’s truly yours.”

“What kind of fucked up logic is that?”

“It’s the logic of mergence. Everything’s become one. Duality is disappearing. Get rid of the notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – unlearn it. There is only ‘being’. There is only what is.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Oh, it isn’t simple. It’s a skill in trust, in yourself and the circumstances that have brought you to this point. Do you think that the fifty years we’ve spent cocooned in our own little bubble has been for nothing? Everything happens for a reason, Dessec, but it takes great mastery to trust in that. Have you heard of the Bird Magi?”

“Magpies?”

“Don’t be a dunce. Bird Magi. Great magicians who dedicate their lives to working with bird magic, to the point where they practically become one with the animal. Birds are fascinating. They have always had the ability to travel between dimensions and the magi know this. It can take years to coax a bird to them, and it is only done through letting go and trust. They must let go of the bird at the end of every meeting they have with it, watch it take to the wind, and trust that it will return. Some birds do and some birds don’t … but the ones that do, build a bond with their would-be masters and return time and time again until they
choose
to rest their wings and earth themselves. In that moment, bird and magician become one, and the magician learns the art of flight and freedom, while the bird learns stability and security.”

“I would ask what your point is, but I’m scared to…”

Teigas stood and dusted himself down, with Pueblo following suit. “You coaxed her, bonded with her, she disappeared, you found her, your bond grew, you were forced apart again… You need to give her the freedom to fly, and she needs to
choose
where to land. There is no partnership, no unity, without choice. If she’s yours, she’ll come back to you.” The imp fixed his eyes on Pueblo. “But if you don’t let her go, you’ll never know if she really came back.”

Chapter Four

To this day, I had never heard a prayer so clearly, so strongly, and so coated in pain, hope, fear and love … it was impossible not to respond. It was not a decision made lightly, but on the purity of your mother’s need, and purity of need is what makes a prayer tangible, my boy – a living, breathing thing.

Your mother had to push you out even though your heart had stopped. Her anguish was so great. I had just landed in the delivery room on the force of her prayer. Remaining invisible, I held you before anyone else did, the second she gave birth to you. I shared my blood with you for the briefest of seconds – some freaky psychic surgery if you could actually see it – being immaterial (and immortal) comes in handy like that. From the outside, it looks like a miracle. From the inside … ha! It
is
a fucking miracle!
 

Anyway… My blood filled your small body, it altered your genetic coding and restarted your heart.

Now, that was a picture – the look on all the nurses’ faces when the monitor fired up again.

You’ve got to understand, angels are forbidden to create – I shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have been able to. But I wasn’t exactly supposed to find the Holy Grail either…

Your mother was a changed woman that day. I know that may be hard for you to believe, but you gave her hope when she had none, and you became her strength. One thing I’ve learnt about humans: you can’t judge their strength by the size of their actions, but by the devotion of an act, no matter how small.

That day, and for the rest of the week that you both remained in the hospital, she asked all staff to keep her husband away – he hadn’t wanted to be part of the birth anyway. She refused all calls from him and insisted he be told she was too ill for visitors. He’d been spewing some verbal shit at her just before she went into labour. She didn’t want your newborn ears subjected to that crap.

It was the only time she ever defied him.

She didn’t stop smiling for five days.

I stayed with your family for eight months after that, never visible, of course. I would have stayed longer – I would have stayed every year, for years, but I got called upon to help a witch with his daughter – another prayer that was impossible to turn away from.

And this is where fate steps in. This is the part where angels don’t know everything. For that witch would be Etienne Green; his daughter, Katherine, and her future daughter would be your soul-bonded.

The precise moment I understood Katherine was pregnant by Darius and that she needed to protect her baby, was the precise moment I knew your role: I would not be the only one to protect her child.

But with that began a different story.

Mine with you ends here.

You carry my genes in your blood because your mother loved you so much, her prayer rocked the skies.

And I love you too.

Everything you are, and everything I know you’ll become.

My son.

Gwain

28th October, 2011

Just hours before he’d died.

Karl slammed the book shut for the hundredth time; for the hundredth time, still unsure what to make of it all. His heart felt squeezed of all blood. Christ, it was hard to breath. In fact, breathing had been hard for the past few weeks.

My son.

He wanted to hurl the damn thing at the wall. He wanted to rip the leaves out and burn them, but the antiquarian in him couldn’t bear the thought of ruining so much history.
His
history.

The book was the size of an encyclopaedia and looked to have been bound around the mid-nineteenth century. It had been the only thing in the safe, along with a letter about magic and a sword or relic or some shit he just couldn’t get his head around right now along with all the other information swimming in it. It didn’t even feel like his own head sometimes.

In the book were notations of things Gwain had done throughout the centuries, some of them downright bizarre (and he’d learnt a whole bunch of stuff about Van Gogh he really didn’t want to know), right up until there was nothing at all – no entry written – for about fifty years, then, all of a sudden, there was the above, written
to
him;
about
him.

And then there were the newspaper clippings and other trinkets that seemed to follow pivotal points in Karl’s life: the faded photographs of his BMX rally days in his early teens, random moments he’d wished either of his parents had been around to see, a keyring and an old, 1902 two-pence piece, both of which he thought he’d lost when he was ten… Clearly, Gwain had found them. He’d
been
there. Gwain had been there the whole fucking time.

Oh yeah. And there was also the small matter of inheriting half the bloody world.

That swimming in his head turned into a typhoon, and he manhandled the gigantic book back inside the top drawer of the bedroom chest and shut it.

My son,
whispered his mind. There’d been a lot of whispering in his mind recently.

He brought the heel of his palm to his forehead in an attempt to shut it all out.

“Hey.”

He jumped as he turned, caught completely unawares by Elena’s entrance. The grey light of dawn encircled her. Usually, he found it enhanced her beauty – hell, he’d find her beautiful encircled by a mass of creepy crawlies – but right this second, oddly, it reminded him of the fact that she was a Shanka demon; half of her ruled by shadows. “Hey. I didn’t hear you.”

She smiled. “I was quiet.” Then her eyes dropped to the closed top drawer before meeting his again. “My mum’s being stubborn about being rejuvenated.”

He went to stuff his hands into his pockets, then realised he was wearing nothing but his boxers. “She’s been through a lot. She’ll come around.”